Travel Blog – Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

With the clink of midnight champagne still ringing in our ears (not New Year’s Eve – we just like champagne), the Smith Travel Blog comes skipping into 2010 with a fistful of resolutions, most of which involve getting more stamps in our passport, more hotels in our collection, and more gin in our martini. We’ll let you know how it goes. To start the year, over to our very own TuneSmith, DJ Rob Wood,  the brains and ears behind our albums, to make his first monthly recommendations of the decade…

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ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Splendor in the Grass by Pink Martini

When? Only glamour will do
Why? It’s a genre-hopping trip through national boundaries

Discovering Pink Martini is the equivalent of accidentally stumbling upon a hidden, slightly seedy music club that is so wonderful and full of life that you don’t want to tell a soul for fear of ruining it. Draw back the curtain and you are presented with an exotic and enticing range of smouldering cocktail jazz, Mexican ranchera, Neapolitan torch songs, and Latin-esque passion – all executed with panache, as well as more than a hint of the kitsch. As this is their fourth album, the secret has been out a while, but for those not-in-the-know, Pink Martini are a celebrated 12-piece orchestra led by the multi-talented pianist Thomas Lauderdale, whose love of 1940s Hollywood musicals touches everything the band do. With a plethora of music styles at Pink Martini’s disposal, this is the musical equal of jetting round the world with an endless supply of first class cocktails to hand. Thrilling and very good fun, but at some point you must, unfortunately, come down.

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THE SMITH CLASSIC

Graceland by Paul Simon

When? A true classic is called for
Why? This masterpiece helped open people’s ears to music from the other side of the world

This was world music before world music existed, delivered by someone from whom you’d least expect it. While Bon Jovi was Slippery When Wet, and the Beastie Boys were Licensed to Ill, the unlikely cultural ambassador Paul Simon violated a United Nations boycott on visiting South Africa in 1986 to record an album with local artists Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Tao Ea Matsekha. Although some held him in political disdain for apparently skirting past the issue of apartheid, others saw this groundbreaking recording for what it was: a brilliant meeting of cultures that, framed by Simon’s evocative lyrics, celebrated African music, and soared above the appalling political reality. Across a spellbinding mixture of music styles, tracks such as ‘Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes’, ‘Homeless’ and ‘Under African Skies’ were immediately unforgettable, and meant that the music of South Africa was as un-ignorable as the country’s fight for freedom.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Features, South Africa, Uncategorized. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.